


Brendon Maddow

by Schuyler



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-18
Updated: 2010-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schuyler/pseuds/Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon pines. Spencer follows him. Rachel tries not to laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brendon Maddow

**Author's Note:**

> The actual successor to Spencer Deschanel. Thanks to R., who I used as bandom wikipedia at midnight on a weeknight and she didn't even complain.

“Rachel?” he said, barely restraining himself from sniffles, and she wondered yet again just how badly her siblings had spoiled the baby of the family.

“Yes, Brendon?”

“If you guys aren’t busy, can I come up to the house with you this weekend? I need to ... get out of here.”

Rachel smiled. “Of course you can, sweetie. Come by around six and we’ll go up to Penn together.”

“Thank you.”

Rachel Anne Urie had been tossed out of her father’s house when she came out at sixteen. She’d taken the last name of the cousins who’d taken her in, Maddow, when she left for college. She spent almost twenty years hardly ever thinking about her father, her stepmother, or the baby boy that had been squalling when she walked out.

One of the first times Panic was booked to play in LA, Kyla had pressed a Post-It note into Brendon’s hand. “Bren, your dad didn’t want you to meet her until you were twenty-one, but I believe in signs. I doubt you remember your oldest sister, Rachel, but she’s going to be in LA the same weekend you are. It never sat right with Mom the way she was treated.”

He’d held the scrap long enough that Rachel’s number burned into his brain, then he drove over to Spencer’s. He had helped Brendon Google her and they listened to her radio show online, found out that she was speaking at an AIDS activism conference. “Shit, Spence,” he said. “She has a PhD from fucking Oxford. I can’t just invite her to see us at the Chain.”

Spencer had been with Brendon during the first halting phone call (“Hi, Rachel. I don’t know if you remember me, but this is your brother Brendon”) and on the morning of their show, he’d borrowed Emily’s car and driven to UCLA to hear her speak. She was impassioned and smart and Brendon was instantly proud to be related to her. She’d welcomed him with hugs and smiles and Spencer went to Best Buy while they talked over lunch. In the end, she’d insisted on coming to The Chain and laughed in Ryan’s face when she saw his makeup. Brendon worshipped her.

As always, Brendon seemed pretty excited to see Rachel and Susan, but overjoyed to see Brewster, their chocolate lab. Brendon rode in the backseat with Brewster and fell asleep while they were in traffic, using Brewster as a pillow. The old dog just gamely tolerated him.

Rachel and Brendon talked a lot, but something changed when he came out to her. He’d just finished Panic’s first second album and he came to New York, ostensibly to tell her, but really to drink cocktails and mope about the tensions in his band. Rachel tolerated it for twenty-four hours, then made him shape up and get some work done. He’d left with the demo of “Folkin’ Around” and full of Rachel’s opinions about being an out celebrity.

Brendon had sort of claimed the guest bedroom in the house in Massachusetts. They had all sorts of people stay there, but Brendon left his things and stuck pictures on the decorative corkboard and he’d bought the quilt (after he’d spilled cocoa on the previous one). Rachel thought she’d mind more, but Brendon was hard not to love. Even Susan doted on him, and Rachel was glad she could give him guidance. She remembered being his age and how much she’d wished she still had her family.

“So, spill,” Rachel said. They were floating in the river, inner tubes tethered to the dock. They were almost to the end of the pitcher of fresh cherry daiquiris.

He pouted up at her, illusion slightly ruined because he’d attempted to reapply his own sunscreen and there were streaks everywhere. “I can wait here all day, Brendon. I’ve got nowhere to be.”

The silence stretched and Rachel watched a pair of birds at the feeder. She could wait him out. “It’s about Spencer,” Brendon finally said.

“About how you’re in love with him?”

Brendon splashed and sputtered. “Is it that obvious?”

“It is to me, yes.”

“Do you think Spencer knows?”

“Boys your age tend to be extraordinarily daft about these things, so no. Probably not.” Brendon sunk further into his tube, pouting. “Are you going to tell him?”

“Rach, I can’t. We’re the whole band. And, fuck, he gave up so much to stay with me. I can’t repay that by making shit awkward.”

“But you just said it, he gave up so much to be with you. What if he feels the same way?” Brendon managed to look like a sad, soaked puppy. “I’m just saying, I’ve seen the two of you together.”

“Is this a...”

“Brendon, for the last time, I don’t have gay ESP. And if I did, you’d have it too.”

He sniffed. “I’m bi.”

“Okay, kid. Whatever.”

They’d been texting the whole time about random stuff, but Brendon had been purposely cagey when Spencer asked where he was. That was unlike him, so Spencer called Rachel on Saturday night. “I’m just worried about him. He’s been acting weird and I don’t want to be a pest, but ... I miss him. I’ll bring fresh corn!”

Rachel smiled. She could hear Susan trying to smack Brendon away from a box of chocolates in the kitchen. “Sure. Call when you get close.”

Rachel was trying to explain the history of Pakistan to Brendon when the phone rang. She picked it up and said two words, then hung up. “Who was that?” Brendon asked.

“Get your jacket,” she said, getting up.

They drove to the train station and the look of surprised joy on Brendon’s face when he saw Spencer told Rachel everything she already knew.

Rachel felt it was rude to eavesdrop, but Susan thought the boys were adorable, like tiny stray puppies in a box, and was peering around the doorway. So Rachel did too.

“Where did you even get this much corn?” Brendon asked. They’d been set to shucking it for dinner. Rachel and Susan were supposedly fixing a broken light upstairs.

“Went to the farmer’s market with Jack. We were gonna go to a barbecue at his uncle’s place today, but I came here instead.”

“Why _did_ you come up here?” Brendon asked.

Spencer shrugged. “Worried about you. Missed you.”

Brendon smiled and darted over to kiss Spencer’s cheek. Spencer accidentally-on-purpose turned and caught the kiss with his mouth. There was enough plausible deniability there, in case either of them didn’t want it. But when Spencer didn’t shy away, Brendon grinned and leaned close and Rachel squeaked with glee.


End file.
